FCAT Tips for Parents
I. General Information on the FCAT Reading
Introduction
The purpose of this booklet is to provide
information and examples that could assist
children to get ready for the Florida
Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).
What is FCAT?
The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test
(FCAT) is a standard-referenced assessment.
The results provide a snapshot of what children
know and what they can do according to your
child’s own ability as he or she works to meet the expectations of Florida’s
educational standards. These expectations are outlined in the Sunshine State
Standards.
Your child will be receiving a backpack with books and activities. In order
to facilitate the use of these materials in preparation for the FCAT
Reading test for third graders, this booklet presents activities that
address each of the Language Arts Benchmarks that are tested on the FCAT.
FCAT Reading
The test questions on FCAT measure benchmarks from the
Sunshine State Standards that identify what children are
expected to know and be able to do.
The purpose of the FCAT Reading test is to measure your child’s
level of achievement in understanding meaning from what he is
reading. Reading tests at grades 3 through 10 contain passages
taken from magazines, books, and other publications that children are expected to be
able to read at their grade level. Reading selections are reproduced in the test books
along with the kinds of pictures, captions, and graphics. Each FCAT Reading test
consists of 2-3 literary passages (poems, novels, short stories) and 4-5 informational
passages (magazine and newspaper articles, biographaies) . Passage length varies
from an average of about 400 words to an average of 900 words at grade 10. The
average number of words per passage is 700.
The table below lists the eight Benchmarks that 3rd grade students need to
know for FCAT Reading. This chart will help you understand what is expected
of your child in the reading sections of the FCAT.
Benchmarks
L.A.A.1.2.3
Benchmark: The student uses simple strategies to determine meaning and increase
vocabulary for reading, including the use of prefixes, suffixes, root words, multiple
meanings, antonyms, synonyms, and word relationships.
Summary: This benchmark focuses on the student's vocabulary, as it relates to finding the
meaning of unknown words and understanding word relationships.
L.A.A. 2.2.1
Benchmark: The student reads text and determines the main idea or essential message,
identifies relevant supporting details and facts, and arranges events in chronological order.
Summary: This benchmark focuses on the student's ability to understand the main idea and
the details that support that idea. In addition, the benchmark includes the student's ability
to understand the order of events in a text.
L.A.A. 2.2.2
Benchmark: The student identifies the author's purpose in a simple text.
Summary: This benchmark focuses on the student's ability to understand why an author
writes a text (for example, to inform, to tell a story, to explain).
L.A.A. 2.2.7
Benchmark: The student recognizes the use of comparison and contrast in a text.
Summary: This benchmark focuses on the student's ability to recognize when an author
compares or contrasts things in a text. The benchmark expects that students will be able to
recognize differences or similarities and explain how things are different or similar.
L.A.A. 2.2.8
Benchmark: The student selects and uses a variety of appropriate reference materials,
including multiple presentations of information such as maps, charts, and photos, to gather
information for research projects.
Summary: This benchmark focuses on the student's ability to find information in a text for
a variety of purposes. The student might be asked to locate information in the text, a map,
chart, or photo, or gather information for a research project.
L.A.E. 1.2.2
Benchmark: The student understands the development of plot and how conflicts are
resolved.
Summary: This benchmark focuses on the student's ability to understand how a story
unfolds or develops in a narrative. This benchmark also focuses on the student's ability to
understand how conflicts in the story are resolved. In addition, the student may be asked to
make inferences (informed guesses) or draw conclusions about a story.
L.A.E. 1.2.3
Benchmark: The student knows the similarities and differences among the characters,
settings, and events presented in various texts.
Summary: This benchmark focuses on the student's ability to find similarities and
differences between the characters, settings, and events of a story. The student may be
asked to recognize when a character changes (or stays the same) over the course of a story.
L.A.E. 2.2.1
Benchmark: The student recognizes cause-and-effect relationships in literary texts.
Summary: This benchmark focuses on the student's ability to see cause and effect
relationships in stories and articles. Students may be asked to find causes or effects in
fiction (stories), non-fiction (essays), poetry, or plays.
To succeed on the FCAT, your child must develop strong reading comprehension skills. The
FCAT does not test a student's intelligence or prior knowledge. Instead, it tests a student's
ability to understand the meaning of what he or she reads.
Reading comprehension skills improve only with PRACTICE. Your child can use a number of
simple, everyday activities to practice the Reading Benchmarks tested on the FCAT, and you
can help him at home to improve his skills.
Encourage Your Child to Practice Reading
To help your child perform well in school and on the FCAT, the best (and simplest) thing to
do is to encourage practice reading at home. The more time your child spends reading, the
more improvement you both will see in vocabulary, comprehension, and knowledge.
To encourage practice reading, help your child find easy-to-read materials that match your
child's interests. Children read what interests them. A child who hates reading a literature
assignment might like to read a magazine on fashion, sports, or music. This is good because
he skills he needs to develop are the same no matter what the source. Finding stories
related to a child's interests can tempt even the most reluctant child to start reading more.
II. Preparing Children for the FCAT Reading
Each one of the following areas is covered on the FCAT Reading. Make sure you use
several of the strategies outlined below to teach them to your child:
¾ Vocabulary
Definition of concepts
Vocabulary in context
Vocabulary map
World wall
Synonyms/Antonyms
•
•
•
•
•
¾ Main Idea
•
•
•
•
•
¾
•
•
•
•
•
Main Idea
One sentence summary
Respond to:
Somebody/Wanted/But/So
Two column notes
Summarizing
Facts & Details
Selective underlining / Highlighting
Concept mapping
Webbing
Illustrations of passage
Summarizing
¾ Plot Development/Resolution
•
•
•
•
•
Story Map
Retelling
Flow Chart
Somebody/Wanted/But/So
Pattern Puzzle
¾ Compare & Contrast
•
•
•
•
•
Venn Diagram with written
summary
Semantic feature analysis
Summary frame for Compare/
Contrast
Content frame
Similes and metaphors
¾ Chronological Order
• Timeline
• Story map
• Story board
• Flow chart
¾ Cause & Effect
•
•
•
•
•
Summary frame
Flow chart
Cause effect chain
Two column notes
Somebody /Wanted/ But
/So
¾
Multiple Representations of Information
•
Charts
•
Graphs
•
Map
¾ Author's Purpose
PIES
Persuade
Inform
Entertain
Share an Experience
Vocabulary Building
Prefixes, Root Words, and Suffixes
•
You and your child can make and decorate colorful flash cards with
common prefixes, suffixes, and root words. Use index cards and
draw pictures or symbols on each card to illustrate the meanings of
the words or word parts. The more fun you have making the cards,
the greater the chance your child will remember the words.
Practice with the cards when taking car trips, on rainy days, or
whenever you have a few minutes for play.
•
It is a good idea to read aloud with your child. When reading aloud
to one another, discuss words you come upon that contain prefixes
and suffixes. Talk about what the word parts mean and how they
change the meaning of the root word; then talk about synonyms for
those words.
Homonyms
• As you read aloud with your child, point out the homonyms (words that
sound alike but have different meanings and sometimes different
spellings, for example, red and read, bow, bough).
Synonyms and Antonyms
• When your child asks what a word means, use the opportunity to
define the word using synonyms (two words with the same meaning,
for example, "shop" and "store"), if possible. Then ask the child if he
or she knows an antonym (two words with opposite meaning, for
example, "off" and "on") for the word.
•
This is a version of the game "Concentration." Make a deck of cards
with pairs of synonyms and antonyms. You can make two separate
decks or you can mix them together for extra challenge. Shuffle the
cards, then lay them out face down in a large rectangle. You and your
child can take turns flipping pairs of cards, matching synonyms and
antonyms until all the pairs have been matched.
•
This is a good car-trip game or a game to play while working around
the house together. You and your child can take turns calling out
words to one another. The other person responds by giving a word
that means the same (synonym) or by giving a word that means the
opposite (antonym). When one person can't think of an answer, the
other person wins that round.
Word Meaning From Context
• This is a good game to play while driving or working around the house
together. Think of a word your child does not know. Then, use the
word in a sentence and see if the child can guess its meaning. You can
take turns, your child uses a word in a sentence and you guess its
meaning.
•
Have your child read an article from the newspaper. Ask him to use a
highlighter pen and highlight the words he does not know. Go back
through the article with the child and discuss possible meaning for
the words, based on how they are used. Have the child look up the
word in the dictionary to see if your definitions were correct.
Finding the Main Idea
• After reading a story or chapter with your child, or even after
watching a TV show or movie, ask your child to tell you what the story
was about. You can have him or her draw a picture of his or her
favorite part of the story and then write a few sentences that
express the main idea.
•
Have the child read aloud to you for twenty minutes. When he is done,
ask him or her describe to you, in his or her own words what he has
read.
•
Each day after school or in the evenings, have your child tell you one
or two stories about the day. Then, ask the child to make a newspaper
headline to describe the event or events. These headlines are the
main idea.
Supporting Details
• Read with your child for about twenty minutes. Ask your child to tell
you or list the important details in the story. Talk about why the
details are important and how these details are important help to
support the major events in the story.
•
Have your child tell you a story about his or her day. Keep asking him
or her questions so that he or she has to give you details to help you
get a clear idea about the story. Talk about why those details are so
important.
Inference
• Together with your child, select a suspenseful story to read with your
child. After reading a chapter, or the first part of the book, stop and
talk about what you think might happen next. Write down your guesses
and your reasons for thinking them. When you have finished the story,
compare your guesses with the story's events.
•
•
Make up a story with your child. This can be written down or just
made up on the spot. When you reach points in the story that require
a decision about what action will happen next, choose three possible
directions the story could take. Take turns making up what would
happen if the action went these three different ways. Talk about why
things would turn out the way they would.
When watching a video together, pause the video at important
moments in the story and make guesses about what might happen next
and why, based on things you have learned about the characters,
setting, or action in the previous minutes.
Significant and Minor Details
• Use a brochure from somewhere you have visited — a zoo, museum,
play, etc. — and have your child read it aloud to you. Then have him or
her tell you which of the facts from the brochure are important to
understanding the purpose, place, or event, and which details could be
eliminated without making the information seem confusing or
incomplete. You can also do this activity using newspaper articles.
Chronological Order
• After reading a story or seeing a movie, have your child write down all
the events that happened, each one on a slip of paper or a card. Put
them into a hat or bowl and mix them up. Then, help your child put the
events in order based on when they happened. This will give your child
practice in making and understanding timelines.
•
Have your child write a letter to you or to a grandparent or to a
friend telling about a family vacation or adventure. Have him or her
write the story by including every little detail.
Author's Purpose
•
After reading a story or chapter with your child, ask him or her to
find five things in the story that are factual (true and based on fact)
and five things that are someone's opinion (what someone thinks).
Discuss the differences between fact and opinion.
• Play a game where you pretend that your child is a talk show host, a
news reporter, or an advertising executive. Have him or her make up
statements about people, things and events, and discuss the purpose of
the statements — are they trying to entertain, inform, or persuade?
Comparison and Contrast
• Have your child make a small notebook of cut-out pictures from
magazines, printed pages from the Internet, old books or the
newspaper. Then, ask him or her to create captions that compare the
pictures.
•
Wherever you go, talk to your child about what is alike and what is
different about the people, places, and things that you see together.
You can compare items on a menu, in a shop window, or at the grocery
store. Ask your child to supply as much detail as possible to emphasize
"sameness" and "difference."
Reading Maps and Charts
• Organize a backyard treasure hunt. Make a simple map with clues or
riddles directing the participating children to each spot on the map.
Once they have gotten the final clue and the final object, they
receive a prize or reward.
•
Have a weekly or monthly family show-and-tell session. Each member
of the family must make a presentation about something he or she did,
learned or want to learn. Emphasize the use of graphs, charts and
maps in your presentations.
Using Photos to Make Predictions and Write Summaries
• Look through a magazine or book that has lots of interesting colorful
pictures. Talk about what the pictures might mean and what the
accompanying article might be about based on the pictures. Make up
stories about the pictures. Then read the article and find out if your
guesses and stories were correct.
•
Let your child take pictures of a family vacation or outing. Ask your
child to write a summary of the family adventure, and then use the
photographs to support and illustrate the points or events in the
story. Make a book that combines the child's account and his or her
pictures.
•
Take family photos and put them in a box. Ask your child to use the
pictures to make up a story (it doesn't have to be a true story). Make
a book using the story and the pictures, and give it to someone as a
gift!
Beginning the Research Process
• Hold a family science fair or cooking contest with a special theme. You
could have a small-scale science fair where everyone is to make
something to help attract birds to your back yard. You could have a
"Best Cookie Contest" where everyone has to choose their own recipe.
Each of these examples requires that children conduct some research
before starting, whether looking through cookbooks for recipes or
garden magazines for birdfeeder ideas.
•
Start a family newsletter. Ask each member of your family to
interview another family member and write a short article about him
or her. Each interview should have a theme or main topic such as
favorite hobbies, sports, etc. Children can use pictures, drawings, or
cartoons to illustrate the newsletter articles.
•
The next time your child asks you a question about how something
works or the meaning of a word, direct him or her to the encyclopedia,
almanac, internet or dictionary to reinforce the habit of using
reference materials.
Understanding Plot Development
• When you watch movies, television programs, or plays with your
children, ask them questions about the story involved. Ask your child
to tell you what he thinks the conflict or crisis was. Discuss what the
story was about and the details that led up to the conflict or crisis.
Talk about the events that happened in the story, and discuss what
the characters were like. Discuss the problems that each of the
individual characters faced.
Describing Solutions to Problems
• Talk about a problem your child may be facing in school , at home or
with his or her friends. Encourage your child to think of ways to solve
the problem on his or her own, and give your child some time to work
out the problem. Later, ask your child to talk about the problem he or
she faced and how the problem was solved.
Describing Conflict Resolution
• Once you have discovered how a character in a movie or book resolves
his or her conflicts, ask your child what he or she would do in the
same situation. What are some other possible solutions to the
conflict?
• Talk to your child about the conflicts that arise in everyday life. Ask
the child to describe how conflicts at school, home, or in his or her
club activities are resolved. How did your family decide where to
spend the holidays? How did your children decide who was going to do
which chore? Talk about how we can sometimes be in conflict with
other people and be in conflict with ourselves when we cannot think of
the right thing to do.
Inferences About Character Traits
• After reading a story, watching a television show or movie with your
child, talk about how your child's favorite character would act in
another situation. Discuss what details in the story helped you decide
what the character was like. You can even pretend that you are the
character and have your child give you a new situation to react to, or
ask the child to be the character and you give him or her a situation.
•
Ask your child about people in his or her life. Make up situations and
guess how those people might react to those situations. Why? What
do you know about the person that makes you think he or she would
react a certain way? These are the details on which we base
inference.
•
Watch a video with your child and stop the story at certain important
points in the action. Discuss what you think the character might do.
Write down your guesses and compare them to what the character
really does at the end of the movie.
Inferences About Character Motives
• Watch a movie or read a book that has a clear-cut "bad guy" and a
"good guy." Talk with your child about why these characters do the
things they do, or what "motivates" their actions.
•
This is a fun game to play while traveling in a car. Make up a character
for yourself and have your child make up a character to play as well.
Tell each other important details about the character. Then, create a
scenario in which the character does something a bit odd, dangerous,
silly, or mysterious. Ask each other what motives the character might
have had.
Inferences About Plot Development
• Whenever you watch a television show or video with your child, make a
game of guessing what may happen in the plot. At commercial breaks
or when you choose to "pause" the video, guess what may happen next
and why. Write your guesses down and at the end of the show or
movie, see who made the best inferences.
•
While sitting around the table after dinner or while traveling, make a
circle story. In a circle story, one person makes up the beginning of a
story for instance, a character and a situation, then the next person
makes up an event that happens to the character and so on. Each
person must use inferences, or educated guesses, in order to create
the next part of the story or to create details to make the
characters lifelike.
Inferences About Story Setting
• Read a story aloud to your child. Leave out any references to the
story's setting that would tell the child exactly what the setting is,
but leave in details that act as clues. When the story is finished, ask
your fourth grader where they think the story is set and why.
•
Have your fourth grader make up a story and tell it to you, but ask
them not to tell you exactly where the story is set. You have to try
and make a guess about the story's setting. If the child has not given
you enough details to make a correct guess, ask questions until you can
make a good guess. Then switch and you make up a story.
•
This is a version of twenty questions that is fun to play in groups or
pairs. Have your child make up a location, such as the mall during a
thunderstorm, a sports event when it's raining, the kitchen during
Thanksgiving dinner, a desert island. However, the child does not tell
you "where" you are. Then, you ask your child "yes" or "no" questions
until you figure out what setting he or she is trying to evoke.
Similarities and Differences in Characters
• Play a family comparison game. Talk about what similarities and
differences exist between members of your own extended and nuclear
families. What things are alike about the child's two grandmothers?
Do all the children in the family have the same color hair? Do they
talk the same way? Do they all like macaroni and cheese?
•
After reading a book with many characters in it, ask your fourth
grader to make a table listing the similarities and differences
between the characters.
Similarities and Differences in Settings
• Read several short stories in one week with your child (or have him or
her read the stories). Then, ask your child do a comparison of two
•
settings from the stories, taking note of where the stories took place
and what kinds of details the author used to describe the story
settings.
After reading a book or seeing a movie, ask your child to compare the
story or movie's setting with your own house, neighborhood, city,
country, climate, etc. How are they alike? How are they different?
Similarities and Differences in Events
• Play a game in which the child names an event, such as a wedding, a
feast, an argument, or a swimming party, and you respond with an
event that is opposite to that event: a funeral, a famine, a hug, a
thunderstorm. Then, talk about what things are similar and different
between the events.
•
Talk with your child about how the events in a story or movie are alike
or different from the events your child experienced that day. Are
both events happy? Is one more exciting than the other? Are they
both challenging?
Cause and Effect in Literary Writing
• Talk about the relationship between cause and effect in your child's
everyday life. When your child is dealing with the consequences of his
or her actions, talk about what caused the consequences and what the
child might do differently the next time to have a different effect.
Talk about examples of cause and effect in your life.
•
While watching a TV show or movie with your child, pause and discuss
what may have caused a certain thing to happen. Why did the car go
over the cliff? Why did the ballerina win the contest?
That’s All Folks!!
Have fun working with your children!!!!